Merry

“He Knows Not to What End He Rides; Yet if he Knew , He Still Would Go On.” Merry Begins His Ride to War.

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The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 760-762

The last few posts on this blog have been a kind of mini-series on Meriadoc Brandybuck, known to all as Merry. I didn’t intend to do this. I wanted to move on, as soon as possible, to think about Aragorn’s ride to war beginning with his challenge to Sauron through the Stone of Orthanc but each time I tried to do so I found myself being interrupted by the young hobbit. Merry did not want to be “left behind” and I found that I could not do that myself.

Poor Merry. At all times in this part of the story he is unsure about what part he might be able to play, if any part at all. He fears being left behind and yet when he rides with Théoden and the Rohirrim from Helm’s Deep to Dunharrow he finds that it is he who leaves behind Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli and the Dúnedain of the North. For Aragorn emerges from the Hornburg and makes a startling announcement.

“We must ride our own road, and no longer in secret. For the time of stealth has passed. I will ride east by the swiftest way, and I will take the Paths of the Dead.”

We know that the sons of Elrond accompanied the Dúnedain on their journey south in search of Aragorn and that they brought with them word from their father:

“If thou art in haste, remember the Paths of the Dead.“

But only Aragorn heard these words and no other and he did not wish to discuss them further at that time, so when he does announce his intention to take that road it comes as a complete surprise to all who hear him. And poor Merry suddenly finds himself placed in Théoden’s hands as Aragorn makes his plans without him. A short while before Merry was grateful to have Théoden’s company but now he feels unhappy and abandoned by a companion with whom he has journeyed since Rivendell and has come to love.

Like Sam Gamgee, Merry often feels “torn in two”. He would dearly love to ride with Aragorn wherever he goes; he would have loved to have ridden with Pippin and Gandalf to Minas Tirith; and he has come to love Théoden as a father, but unlike Sam he does not have a lode-star that will enable him to overcome all doubt. Sam will walk with Frodo wherever he goes and this will always be his guiding principle. Merry was denied the option of going with Frodo when he and Pippin were taken by the orcs of Isengard and since that time he has been carried first by his enemies to Fangorn, then by Treebeard to Isengard, and lastly by the Rohirrim to Helm’s Deep. At no time has he any choice in where he goes and now he is being carried to Dunharrow.

Bilbo’s words on the night of the Long-expected Party come to mind.

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

We remember that Merry began with “eager feet” at Crickhollow. He was the main organiser of the conspiracy that had been planned to prevent Frodo from leaving the Shire alone. We remember how he was ready to leave the Shire with ponies packed and how with confidence he led the hobbits into the Old Forest in order to avoid the Black Riders. But then he became the prisoner of Old Man Willow, of the Barrow Wight, and at last of the orcs of Isengard, “like baggage to be called for when all is over” and that is how he feels now.

I say, that is how Merry feels, but this does not determine what he does. He is deeply unhappy and yet on he rides. He cannot see it for himself but Aragorn sees. He watches Théoden, Éomer and Merry ride away then turns to his companions and says:

“There go three that I love, and the smallest not the least… He knows not to what end; yet if he knew, he still would go on.”

Merry’s heart may be torn in two but on he goes. Bilbo’s words may have been written for him.

“And whither then? I cannot say.”

For Bilbo himself was carried on and on to the Lonely Mountain through many adventures, none of which were chosen by himself, and last of all he entered the deadly presence of Smaug himself. The question of whether he felt inclined to engage in any of the adventures of his journey was never asked of him after Gandalf invited him to join the Dwarf company. It was a complete irrelevance. So too it is for Merry. He does not know what he is doing. He has not known for a very long time. But still he goes on. He goes on to a glory that no-one, most especially himself, could ever have imagined.

“As a Father You Shall Be to Me.” Thoughts on Fathers and Sons as Merry Lays His Sword on Théoden’s Lap.

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The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 758-760

Tolkien never knew his own father. He died in South Africa in 1896 soon after his wife, Mabel, had returned to England with her children on a family visit and was buried there in Bloemfontein. Mabel settled with her children in the Warwickshire village of Hall Green, now a suburb of the city of Birmingham. It was there that she converted to Roman Catholicism and eventually connected her family to the Birmingham Oratory, a church of the Oratorian community founded by John Henry Newman in the mid 19th century. Mabel developed Type 1 Diabetes, a condition at that time little understood and died in 1904 when only 34 years old. Ronald (J.R.R) Tolkien was just 12 years old and bereft of both his parents. Before she died Mabel had made arrangements with the priests at the Birmingham Oratory that they would become guardians to her sons and so it was that Father Francis Xavier Morgan, a man who possessed both kindness and wealth in equal and substantial measure, took on the responsibility for the raising of the two boys.

Readers of The Lord of the Rings have noted an absence of fathers, in a biological sense, in the story. Frodo is an orphan who is raised by his kindly (and wealthy) relative, Bilbo Baggins. Aragorn is an orphan who is raised by Elrond of Rivendell, and to a large degree by Gandalf also. Éomer and Éowyn are raised by their uncle, Théoden, after the death of their father, Éomund. Against this, of course, we must think of the importance of the relationship of Denethor to his two sons, Boromir and Faramir, and the relationship between Sam Gamgee and his father, the Gaffer, and it is worth noting that those relationships have many problems. Indeed, the best models of good fathers that we find in The Lord of the Rings seem to be those father figures, Bilbo, Gandalf and Théoden, who become guardians but not possessors of children.

There is a formal definition of that word, guardian, and Father Morgan had that formal relationship to the young Ronald Tolkien, but perhaps at its best it is a word that denotes a willingness to guard a charge against a world that might damage or even destroy a vulnerable young person before they are ready to face that world as an adult.

In a recent post on this blog I spoke about that moment in our lives when we realise that the grown ups are not going to turn up and we are going to have to face whatever challenge is facing us alone. We watched Merry face this as Aragorn wrestled with his own choices and we felt his vulnerability. Now, as Théoden and his company arrive at Helm’s Deep on their journey back towards Dunharrow and Edoras, we see Legolas and Gimli deepen their growing friendship, and we do not even know where Aragorn has gone. Once again, Merry feels like an item of unnecessary baggage as everyone else makes preparation for war. And then…

“The king was already there, and as soon as they entered he called for Merry and had a seat set for him at his side. ‘It is not as I would have it,’ said Théoden; ‘for this is little like my fair house in Edoras. And your friend is gone, who should also be here. But it may be long ere we sit, you and I, at the high table in Meduseld; there will be no time for feasting when I return thither. But come now! Eat and drink, and let us speak together while we may.”

It is a moment of the deepest tenderness as war is prepared and Merry is deeply moved. He offers his sword in service to the king just as Pippin did to Denethor and the king receives it graciously. Pippin offered his service to Denethor out of a sense of obligation, an attempt to pay the debt he felt he owed for the sacrifice of Boromir. Merry offers his service out of love for Théoden.

“As a father you shall be to me,” he says.

As I have written this piece a memory has come back to me and a name come to mind that I would like to honour in this blog. In 1980 I was a young teacher at a boys’ school in Zambia, Central Africa. I made a number of mistakes, not malicious ones, but the mistakes of inexperience and foolishness, and my students lost confidence in me and demanded my dismissal. Word of this even reached the office of the President of Zambia. Zambia was like a big village in those days and officials in that office told the school to get rid of me. Later I was to learn that the acting principal was going to carry out that instruction but was prevented from doing so by his deputy, Mr Tennyson Sikakwa. One evening as I sat miserably in my house at the school, Tennyson came to sit with me. “You will learn much more from how you deal with your failures than from your successes,” he said. It was a turning point in my life and I owe the profoundest debt of gratitude to him for standing with me at my lowest point. As a father he was to me and I wish to honour him here.

“My Business is With Isengard Tonight, With Rock and Stone.” How The Ents Destroyed Saruman”s Fortress

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 734-744

The smoking of pipes at the ruined gates of Isengard had created a quiet mood in which nothing is said but Legolas is anxious to know more about the story of the hobbits after their capture by orcs nine days before. Merry and Pippin spoke of their experience with the Uruk-hai and how they were able to escape amidst the confusion of battle when Éomer’s company attacked. As Gimli said about how Pippin was able to cut his bonds with an orc knife at an earlier point in the story the hobbits were lucky but they were able to seize their luck “with both hands”.

Merry and Pippin went on to speak of their meeting with Treebeard and of Entmoot when the Ents discussed what action they should take against Saruman. Then they spoke of how, at the end of their debate, the Ents “suddenly blew up”, of how they marched upon Isengard, and of how they were followed by huorns who came out of the forest behind them.

They spoke of how, as they reached Nan Curunir, the vale of the wizard, they were met by a tremendous sound of trumpets blaring and thought that they had been discovered by their enemies. But then they had realised that the noise was of the emptying of Isengard as Saruman sent his army to war against Rohan and how for an hour they watched them marching southward towards Helm’s Deep.

Treebeard watched them go and then said to Merry and Pippin, “My business is with Isengard tonight, with rock and stone”.

Tolkien describes how the Ents launched their assault upon the fortress, wonderfully showing how the slow, deliberate action of tree roots over a hundred years, an action about which all householders must be aware, was concentrated into a single night’s furious work.

“They pushed, pulled, tore, shook and hammered; and clang-bang, crash-crack, in five minutes they had these huge gates just lying in ruin; and some were already beginning to eat into the walls, like rabbits in a sand-pit.”

Merry and Pippin go on to describe how the destruction continues, how Saruman tried to respond by means of fire from within his impregnable fastness of Orthanc at the heart of Isengard; and how the Ents diverted the waters of the Isen from its natural course and flooded the fortress, turning Orthanc into an island in the centre of a lake, an island in which Saruman was now a prisoner.

I have already spoken of how, in this powerful piece of description, Tolkien shows how the action of a forest upon a house over many years is concentrated within a single night. We know that if any building is neglected for a period of time nature soon reclaims it, drawing it back into itself as what once seemed to be permanent is shown to be merely temporary. Tolkien did not know of James Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis, in which Lovelock suggested that the earth is a complex self-regulating system within which that which is organic and non-organic interacts in order to maintain the system as a whole but I suspect that he may have been inclined to like it if he did. Many scientists have criticised the hypothesis on the basis that it is teleological, in other words that it is descriptive of a set of conditions that will lead to a particular end, in this case about the survival of planet earth as a place for organic life, but Tolkien was a Christian, and Christians believe that everything is moving towards a conclusion, of a new heaven and a new earth.

In his Music of the Ainur Tolkien places the whole history of the earth within the framework of a single piece of music in which all creatures, both earthly and heavenly are active participants. Only Eru Ilúvatar, only God, knows how the music will end but it will be a beautiful resolution of all that has preceded that end. As the 14th century English mystic, Julian of Norwich put it, “All shall be well”. There may be a time in which figures like Saruman may triumph but as the Ents show, through their business with the rock and stone of Isengard, they cannot triumph forever.

“Fangorn is My Name.” Merry and Pippin Meet Treebeard on a Hill in The Forest.

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991,2007) pp. 600-607

Merry and Pippin make their escape from the Orcs up the Entwash into the Forest of Fangorn and at first they are driven by fear of their captors. But at last they pause, struggling for breath in the stifling stillness of the forest and try to assess their position. Which way should they go and what provision do they have for their journey?

A careful examination of their position would not give the hobbits much hope. They have only lembas to eat and enough for only five days and where will they go? But we have already seen that they are content to live in the moment and soon their curiosity about their immediate surroundings begins to grow and, for a while at least, concern for their prospects fades away.

It is the age of the forest that fascinates them and the feeling of age. Pippin likens the forest to the “old room in the Great Place of the Tooks”, where the Old Took, Gerontius, who Bilbo knew, lived year after year while the room grew old about him. “But that is nothing to the old feeling of this wood.”

The moment in which the young hobbits meet Treebeard for the very first time is handled very differently in Peter Jackson’s film than it is in Tolkien’s original telling of the story. The obvious difference is that Tolkien gives us no pursuing orcs. They are lying slain on the grass of Rohan by this point and Grishnákh was killed while trying to take the hobbits to Mordor. But the other difference is that there seems to be a complete absence of fear on the part of Merry and Pippin as they are lifted from the ground by “a large Man-like, almost Troll-like, figure, at least fourteen feet high, very sturdy, with a tall head, and hardly any neck.” I will come back to this strange absence of fear next week in my reflection. As always I do not consider it to be an oversight on Tolkien’s part, one that Peter Jackson corrects.

What we are given is wonder. The first thing that Merry and Pippin become aware of is Treebeard’s eyes and it is Pippin, the one who is normally unreflective, who tries to describe those eyes.

“One felt as if there was an enormous well behind them, filled up with ages of memory and long slow steady thinking; but their surface was sparkling with the present; like sun shimmering on the outer leaves of a vast tree, or on the ripples of a very deep lake. I don’t know, but it felt as if something that grew in the ground- asleep, you might say, or just feeling itself as something between root-tip and leaf-tip, between deep earth and sky had suddenly waked up, and was considering you with the same slow care that it had given to its own inside affairs for endless years.”

What Pippin seems to be describing is nature itself in all its heartbreaking beauty. I say heartbreaking because even as we read these words we are so aware of the fragility of the world that Treebeard expresses and represents. And in this Tolkien reveals himself as a modern writer who is aware that nature is standing at bay as a debased culture, orc like in its character, knows only one relationship to the natural world and that is dominance, abuse and rape.

One of my pleasures in writing these reflections is seeking for appropriate artwork to aid them. Although I enjoyed the films that Peter Jackson made and, in particular, loved the landscapes within which he set the story I have found much more help for my own work from the imaginations of artists. This week I have used an image by the excellent Anke Eissmann once again who finds such character in the faces of Merry and Pippin and I have found a wonderful depiction of Treebeard’s face by Alan Lee. If Eissmann always gives us character in her work Lee gives us mystery. There is a transcendent quality to all his work. Each image is a kind of portal to a reality beyond the surface that can be touched or simply regarded. This is certainly true of his depiction of Treebeard and as I looked at it I began to see a likeness to his depiction of the figure of Merlin in Bragdon Wood from C.S Lewis’s That Hideous Strength. Again, in future weeks, I want to come back to this likeness. I do not know if it was intentional on Lee’s part but that sense that something is awakening, emerging from the earth in both Treebeard and Merlin, is one that excites, even intoxicates me. I hope that you will enjoy this exploration with me and that, perhaps, you will share your insights and responses in the comments section below.

“You Seem to Have Been Doing Well, Master Took.” Merry and Pippin Escape From The Orcs Into Fangorn Forest.

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991,2007) pp. 591-599

The Orcs have taken Merry and Pippin close to the eaves of Fangorn Forest on their way towards Isengard but there they are halted by Éomer’s company who swiftly surround them with a ring of watch fires in the night. Neither side make any move until a small group of the Riders come in close, slip off their horses and kill several orcs before disappearing into the night. Uglúk and the orcs who had been guarding the hobbits dash off to stop a general stampede and the hobbits are left with Grishnákh, a terrible orc from Mordor.

It soon becomes clear that Grishnákh has been sent from Mordor with orders to bring hobbits back to Barad-dur and it even seems that he knows something about the Ring. Pippin becomes aware of this first and begins to make noises that imitate Gollum. We can only assume that he knows about Gollum’s mannerisms from stories that Bilbo would have told as he has never met him but the noises have their effect. Grishnákh is almost overcome with desire and picks up the hobbits, one under each arm, and tries to escape between the fires.

He does not succeed. He is killed by the Riders who miss the hobbits in the dark and so Merry and Pippin are able to make their escape.

Later there is a charming scene in which Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli succeed in tracking the route that Merry and Pippin take from the orc encampment into the Forest of Fangorn. Legolas tries to make sense of the hobbits’ escape.

“A bound prisoner escapes both from the Orcs and from the surrounding horsemen. He then stops while still in the open, and cuts his bonds with an orc-knife. But how and why? For if his legs were tied, how did he walk? And if his arms were tied, how did he use the knife? And if neither were tied, why did he cut the cords at all? Being pleased with his skill, he then sat down and quietly ate some waybread! That is enough to show that he was a hobbit, without the mallorn-leaf. After that, I suppose, he turned his arms into wings and flew away singing into the trees. It should be easy to find him: we only need wings ourselves.”

The answer to the question about the knife is that earlier in the forced march across the plains of Rohan there had been a bloody argument amongst the hobbits’ captors about what to do with their prisoners. In the brief moment of chaos that followed the fight before Uglúk was able to restore control Pippin was able to cut the cords that bound him using the knife of one of the orcs that had been killed. He quickly retied them loosely before his captors were able to find out what he had done and so it was that after Grishnákh was killed he was able to use his freed hands to use Grishnákh’s sword to cut the other bonds and so he and Merry were able to make their escape. Merry is impressed by his friend’s inventiveness, hence his remark that Pippin has done “rather well”.

But before they complete their escape Pippin takes a mallorn leaf filled with wafers of lembas, removes some of them from the leaf and shares them with Merry. And soon the taste of lembas brings back to the hobbits “the memory of fair faces, and laughter, and wholesome food in quiet days now far away.”

Tolkien drew upon his belief in the efficacy of the eucharist in his creation of lembas. He outlined that belief in a letter he wrote to his son, Christopher.

“Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament… There you will find romance, glory, honour, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves on earth.”

Tolkien went on to tell his son that the more frequently he received the sacrament the more he would be nourished by it and when Frodo and Sam find that they have nothing else to eat in their journey through Mordor than lembas Tolkien remarks that they were more sustained by it than if they had mixed it with other forms of food. Merry and Pippin find new strength and cheerfulness after the trauma of their cruel treatment at the hands of their captors and so continue their journey into Fangorn.

“Where Do We Get Bed and Breakfast?” On Merry and Pippin and Coping With Difficulties.

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991,2007) pp.583-591

I was going to give this piece the title of “On Hobbits and Coping With Difficulties” but then I asked myself the question, “how would Ted Sandyman deal with this?”, or Lotho Sackville Baggins or the Shirrifs who arrest Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin on their return to the Shire after all their adventures? The point is that hobbits have as much variety in character as any other people.

So let us return to the way in which Merry and Pippin try to cope with the horror of being taken prisoner by orcs. In last week’s piece we found Pippin briefly giving into self-pity and we saw that this is a trope that runs through the story up until the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. But then we saw how Pippin rapidly turned from this to the practical problem of getting free. Pippin, in particular, is not given to very much introspection but both he and Merry share a particular quality together and that is to try to make light of difficulty by the use of humour.

Later in the story Merry will speak of this to Aragorn in the Houses of Healing in Minas Tirith.

“It is the way of my people to use light words at such times and say less than they mean. We fear to say too much. It robs us of the right words when a jest is out of place.”

You only have to open your mouth in England and say a few words and the person with whom you are speaking will begin the process of placing you in a particular social background and will start to treat you accordingly. But class is not something that is set in stone in English culture. It is possible to move from a lower to higher class. Education plays an important role in this process and Tolkien’s education at King Edward’s school in Birmingham and at Oxford University meant that when war came in 1914 he was made an officer and not placed among the ranks.

And it is in the rhythms of speech and the language used by Tolkien’s fellow officers that we will find Merry and Pippin. The use of “light words” is not only a characteristic of the officer class in England it is regarded as essential behaviour. And so Merry speaks of the horror of being taken captive by orcs as “a little expedition” a country walking holiday at the end of which “bed and breakfast” will be found in a pleasant country cottage. By speaking in this manner Merry signals to Pippin that he is alright and Pippin is reassured. And so we see the interplay in The Lord of the Rings between the England of the early 20th century in which Tolkien grew up and the heroic age whose literature Tolkien loved. Again it is an interplay about which Merry and Pippin comment in Minas Tirith when Pippin speaks of having to live “on the heights” as he is brought out of the Shire, the England of the early 20th century, into the heroic world that is represented by Aragorn and Faramir, for example.

We might briefly comment upon the Orcs before concluding these thoughts. Readers of The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S Lewis might remember how Lewis comments on how, in The Magician’s Nephew, Frank, the London cab driver (my grandfather’s profession by the way), begins to revert to the country style of speech that he would have used before moving to London in search of work. This style of speech is the same that Sam Gamgee uses and Lewis is commenting on this reversion favourably. The opposite direction of travel is towards an urban style of speech that is used by Bill Sykes in Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist, for example, and expresses his brutal nature. This is the language of the Orcs. Both Tolkien and Lewis hated the effect, as they saw it, that urban living had upon people and it is no mistake that the orcs often live in the industrial landscapes of Isengard and Mordor. Could Orcs make the same journey that Frank does in The Magician’s Nephew? I will leave that question to my readers.

“Your Quest Stands Upon The Edge of a Knife.” Galadriel’s Silent Interrogation of Each Member of The Fellowship.

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The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 346-349

At one time in her life Galadriel was made to endure an interrogation about events for which she was not responsible but in which she played a part. Melian, Queen of Doriath, and the mother of Lúthien Tinúviel, questioned her long about the reason why the Noldor had returned to Middle-earth from Valinor; long and searchingly until at last she learned the truth, or at least enough of the truth for her to be able fit more of the missing pieces into the puzzle and so make sense of it. Now Galadriel undertakes her own interrogation, in this case of the members of the Fellowship. She has good reason to do this and she declares her reason to them all.

“Your Quest stands upon the edge of a knife. Stray but a little and it will fail, to the ruin of all. Yet hope remains while all the Company is true.”

And so she begins to hold each one with her eyes. It is the truth of their hearts that she seeks to discern. Her long years of wise perception and her gift of discernment are brought to bear upon each member of the Fellowship. For most of them the experience is excruciating and for some of them it is not so much the motives that they own that are brought into the open but those that they hide from themselves or justify to themselves.

Only Aragorn and Legolas are able to endure her gaze for very long. As we saw when we thought about the words that Aragorn spoke aloud to Arwen at Cerin Amroth, Aragorn no longer has hope beyond the ending of the Quest itself. He no longer has hope that he will win Arwen’s hand. That hope fell into the depths of Moria as Gandalf fell with the Balrog. He said to his fellows, “We must do without hope.” His life has been reduced to a pure simplicity. To take the next step and then the next until the end, doing whatever good he can do at each moment until there is no more that he can do. Legolas has no personal interest to declare in this matter for he has none. Elrond chose him to represent the Elves in the Quest and he will stay true to his calling.

As for the others the search of Galadriel’s eyes is much more disturbing. Sam finds that the possibility of returning to the Shire, to a home and garden, is laid out before him. It is what he will receive eventually but he has the choice, whether to try to grasp it now or to take the long road with Frodo. Later he will receive the same temptation to abandon Frodo but in another form. In the Mirror of Galadriel he will see his father in distress and the temptation will come, not in the form of his desire, which is always present, but as a cry for help. Poor Sam will hear this cry often, just as he did with Bill the pony, and each time with a breaking heart he will have to repeat the same words in his heart. “I had to choose, Mr Frodo. I had to come with you.” Sam’s loyalty to Frodo always comes at a cost.

Sam always has to choose.

That Merry also has a similar temptation is perhaps more of a surprise although we note throughout the story that once the four hobbits left the Shire Merry, who until that point had been the competent organiser until the moment that he fell into the clutches of Old Man Willow in the Old Forest, always and increasingly feels out of his depth, like a piece of luggage that others have to bear.

No-one asks Pippin what he experienced. Pippin is the little boy of the Company. The one that the others do not take with much seriousness. Gimli, and Frodo too, do not speak of what they are offered, or seem to be offered, which leaves us with Boromir.

“Almost I should have said that she was tempting us, and offering what she pretended to have the power to give. It need not be said that I refused to listen. The Men of Minas Tirith are true to their word.”

We do not learn at this point what it was that tempted Boromir. We probably find out at the time that he tries to take the Ring from Frodo and we will think about it then. At this stage it is enough for us to know that while each member of the Fellowship has reason not to be true to the Quest it is not so much the knowledge of that reason that they need to fear but the reasons that they try to hide from themselves. These are the temptations that have real danger both for them and the Quest.

“Speak Friend and Enter”. Gandalf Tries to Enter Moria by the Western Gate but is Thwarted By His Own Cleverness.

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The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 290-300

All who know The Lord of the Rings will remember that our title this week is a mistranslation by Gandalf of these words that turns a simple instruction into an impossible riddle. What, in happier times, had been knowledge available to all, had in these times of treachery and betrayal become something arcane, known only to initiates. I fear that we live in such times and so we have to surround information that is important to us with passwords and firewalls. Like Gandalf, if we cannot remember them then, like Gandalf, we might try different possibilities with growing frustration, or as I usually do, click on the link that invites me to change the password.

The latter is not an option available to Gandalf and so he must find the words that will unlock the doors that Narvi made to allow free transport between the Elven Kingdom of Hollin and Durín’s Kingdom of Moria. He speaks of his knowledge of many such words and then tries one after another as each one fails in its purpose. His patience quickly deserts him but, of course, this has never been one of Gandalf’s best qualities. At one point Pippin comes close to having his head used to beat down the door but then at last, even as the Wargs of Mordor begin to howl once more, the answer finally comes to him.

The words on Narvi’s door read pedo mellon a minno. Gandalf had translated pedo as speak and so never actually used the word that he was intended to say. His assumption was that something needed to be spoken and so he tried to find the correct word. It is only when he realises that pedo should be translated say that it all becomes clear.

Mellon is all he needed to say. Friend.

Imagine a world in which Friend is the only password that you will ever require in order to gain entrance to any place. Such a world is one that is filled with friends and not with enemies. Such a world is one in which the hounds of Mordor do not pursue you with the intention of taking your life and a lifeless lake, one that contains a terrible secret, does not bar your passage to your destination. Such a world is one in which doors rarely need to be locked or even closed, a world in which weary travellers can expect a friendly welcome. Indeed it is a world in which the word, friend, is no mere euphemism but one that conveys precisely what it is meant to mean. Only friends were intended or expected to approach the doors of Moria.

Now, once again, a group of friends stand before these gates that are closed. Four are hobbits, two are men, one is a dwarf, one an elf and one a wizard. I call them friends and they will become friends but the bonds that tie them all together are still fragile. We all know the fierce loyalty that binds the hobbits. “We are your friends, Frodo,” were the passionate words spoken in Crickhollow by Merry that declared the intention that he, Pippin and Sam would go with their friend to follow him “like hounds”. But the other bonds are less certain. Aragorn and Boromir are still wary of each other, watching one another from a careful distance and even at the gates of Moria the ancient enmity between Elves and Dwarves is displayed. When Gandalf speaks of the unusual friendship between Moria and Hollin Gimli immediately responds by saying:

“It was not the fault of the Dwarves that the friendship waned”. To which Legolas replies, “I have not heard that it was the fault of the Elves”.

And Gandalf puts an end to the quarrel by saying, “I have heard both, and I will not give judgement now. But I beg you two, Legolas and Gimli, at least to be friends, and to help me. I need you both.”

At this time in the story it is Gandalf who holds them all together and who will take them all into the dark.

What Happened at the Fords of Bruinen? Gandalf Explains All to Frodo in Rivendell.

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The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 215-219

Gandalf explains much to Frodo as the hobbit rests in his wonderful bed but one question above all still bothers him.

“Just give me news of my friends, and tell me the end of the affair at the Ford, as I keep on asking, and I shall be content for the present. After that I shall have another sleep, I think; but I shan’t be able to close my eyes until you have finished the story for me.”

We thought about the events at the Fords of Bruinen a few weeks ago when we were introduced to Glorfindel and his decisive intervention. Now we return to them as Gandalf explains to Frodo what was happening to him on that day. Gandalf explains to Frodo that the Ringwraiths could see him even when he was not wearing the Ring because he was “on the threshold of their world”. The Morgul-knife, with which the Witch-king of Angmar, the Lord of Minas Morgul, had pierced Frodo in his shoulder, had broken inside the wound and had left a splinter there. He had tried to pierce Frodo in his heart and if he had succeeded he would have done a deed that would have been worse than murder for Frodo would have become a wraith, he “would have become like they are, only weaker and under their command”.

And now we know why Gandalf looked at Frodo so closely. How far into the shadow world had Frodo gone? Was there any lasting damage caused by the Morgul Blade as the Witch-king intended or had Elrond been successful in both removing the deadly splinter and in preventing Frodo from slipping out of the world of substance and into the world that the ringwraiths knew?

What is clear is that Frodo’s resistance played a crucial role in his escape and then his recovery. As Gandalf puts it, “Your heart was not touched, and only your shoulder was pierced; and that was because you resisted to the last”. Frodo’s resistance was crucial at that point and then at the Fords of Bruinen when he called out, “You shall have neither the Ring nor me”. But most important of all was the fact that he was able to resist tye journey of the fragment of the blade from the shoulder to the heart.

Frodo’s resistance was aided at the beginning by Strider’s application of athelas to the wound. Even though he is not yet king it is a sign of his true identity that this herb, that seems to share his hiddenness in its apparent insignificance, responds both to his touch and his voice. Strider is the true king who is to come and the world listens to his voice.

But this is not the only aid that Frodo receives. When his hobbit companions said to him, “We are your friends, Frodo”, on that night at Crickhollow when the “conspiracy” was unmasked, these were not mere words. The friendship of Merry, Pippin and, above all, Sam was shown in the unloading of Bill the pony and the carrying of great burdens; it was shown in hobbit cheerfulness even in adversity; it was shown in Sam’s song about trolls at the discovery of the place where Bilbo’s first adventure took place; and it was shown at the Fords of Bruinen when they all ran towards the deadliest of danger in the ringwraiths. And, as readers of The Lord of the Rings know, this was not the last time in the story that this friends were willing to lay down their lives for the love of a friend.

Of course, none of this would have been to any effect if the hobbits had been alone. The Nazgûl would have been too deadly a foe and the Ring, and Frodo too, would have been taken away to Mordor had it not been for the intervention of Glorfindel and the power in the river that awaited any attempt to cross by an enemy. The waters in the river rose and the steeds of the ringwraiths were swept away, their riders forced to return to Mordor having failed in their mission and to be rehorsed.

All of this Gandalf explains to Frodo but he also tells him that while “fortune or fate” may have helped him to escape his deadly foe so too did courage and all through the story that courage will make all the difference.

At Weathertop With a Long Journey Ahead. Frodo Longs to Go Home.

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The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp 180-84

There are moments in any great venture in which its sheer scale becomes all too much. There is no shame in such moments. Who, upon setting out on a great journey, can possibly know all that lies ahead? Modern life seems to require the elimination of as much risk and unpredictability as possible. Those who try to sell us a holiday will brand the experience as an adventure but a true adventure is something in life in which the end is uncertain. A holiday, by comparison, is a distraction from our regular routine.

Later in the story, after he has had much more experience of adventure, Sam will reflect on this with Frodo.

“The brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr. Frodo: adventures, as I used to call them. I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of sport, as you might say. But that’s not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seem to have been landed in them, usually- their paths were laid that way, as you put it. But I expect that they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn’t.”

And it is upon Weathertop, with the first view of snowcapped mountains ahead of him and long leagues of open country between him and the horizon, that Frodo longs to be safe at home, longs to be able to turn back, wishes “bitterly that his fortune had left him in the quiet and beloved Shire.”

Frodo and his companions have been landed in a story that is quite simply much too big for them. As Gandalf said to Frodo in the sitting room at Bag End it would appear that, first, Bilbo, and then Frodo, were meant to have the Ring. Why this should be is unknown to either them or anyone else. It is not because of their wisdom or might. Later the story will be told about them that will draw attention to both of these qualities but the hobbits will never draw attention to themselves in this regard.

But what of the other heroes that are mentioned in the pages about which we are thinking here? What of Gil-galad and Elendil? They were kings of Elves and of Humankind who were confronted by the might of Sauron at the end of the Second Age. Gil-galad was the last great elven king in Middle-earth, capable of raising an army to fight the Dark Lord in all his power in open battle. Elendil, whose very name means elf-friend, had remained faithful to that friendship when Sauron had seduced Númenor to the worship of Morgoth. He, his family and followers, were literally carried by a great wave to the shores of Middle-earth. It was friendship that brought the last alliance together just as it was friendship that caused the hobbits to leave the Shire with Frodo.

And so it always seems to be. Something compels us to make a choice, to take an action that we never anticipated. There comes a moment in which the thought that we might have to deny something essential about ourselves becomes intolerable. Merry, Pippin and Sam could not have denied their friendship with Frodo to allow him to journey into the wild alone. Elendil could not have denied the friendship that was the meaning of his very name.

And Aragorn, or Strider as we know him in this part of the story, cannot deny the destiny that he must seek to fulfil, spending the years of his manhood as a homeless wanderer in the lands of Middle-earth, sneered at by people like Bill Ferny in Bree. Despite all of his doubts about the hobbits he has promised to save them by life or death if he can.

And so it is on Weathertop, with the signs of Gandalf’s battle about them and the Black Riders assembling on the road beneath them that the companions must try to go on together, hoping against hope.